JP Morgan hack might be shots in Russian cyber war

The JP Morgan Chase hacking, which appears to have been carried out by Russians, might be part of a politically motivated cyber war against the US.

Security expert Amichai Shulman, CTO Imperva said that the breach resulted in no initial financial loss indicates this attack could be politically motivated He said that this was different from the alleged Iranian attacks earlier in 2012 and late 2013 that were purely of a denial-of-service nature. Apparently, this time around hackers got inside bank systems.

"None of the people commenting on the incident mentioned a direct financial loss, or a direct fraudulent financial activity by the attacker. Everyone is talking about grabbing sensitive information. I find it odd that someone who was actually able to break into a bank is not using it for making immediate profit. Two possibilities here: first is that there are missing pieces in the puzzle (i.e. we are not being told everything) and second is that these were indeed politically motivated hackers,” Shulman said.

"Everyone is trying hard to tie this with the whole political situation with Russia. However, it is well known that for a few years now, a large portion of banking attacks and financially related hacking has consistently been coming from Eastern Europe."